Reality or Dream?
by BrunchInceptionSociety13
Summary: Araidne is suddenly while watching Doctor Who with Eames and Arthur, taken into a world where there are two options of what reality is... and Araidne has to choose. Unfortunately... she also has to choose between Arthur and Eames! Will she choose correctly?
1. Chapter 1

"Eames, we've got to get on with researching the job."  
"But darling, I've got all the time in the world!  
"No we don't Eames, the job is in a weeks time! And if I don't have all the research done by then... Dom will be so mad at me."  
"Arthur... Jesus, chill! A week is a lot of time!"  
"Eames..." Arthur reloaded his gun. "Don't make me..."  
"Are you boys arguing again?" I retorically asked, knowing the answer was "Yes".  
"Oh, hi Araidne," Arthur said blushing and dropping his gun on the ground with a loud clatter. "Didn't see you there."  
Arthur is the sweetest (and smartest) guy I know, but the fact he didn't spot me behind Dom Cobb's desk shows how he isn't himself today.  
"Eames, what have I told you about annoying Arthur in such a way he feels murderous! Also, I agree with Eames, Arthur take a CHILL PILL! YOLO, 'Kay?"  
"What does YOLO mean?" the two boys said in union.  
"Jesus, you two are so behind the times, you look and act like your from the 21st century but seem to be from another planet other times... Almost like Doctor Who..."  
"Doctor what?" Arthur asked.  
"No! Doctor who! Oh, don't worry... Hey Eames, have you still got that movie projector?"  
"Yeah."  
"Awesome! I can show you what Doctor Who is all about..."

After every episode I showed them, it was always... "Can we watch another one? Please Araidne! We still have a week on the job!" Every time I gave in.  
We were up to the episode that follows the episode 'Utopia' where the Master comes back alive in a younger regeneration, Eames and Arthur were sitting either side of me. The time was nearing eleven p.m. and we were just getting into the action. Eames and Arthur were bickering about who was more like the Doctor. In the end, Eames won because he said he was more handsome and nobody said anything more after that.  
Near the end of the episode, I started to feel...

"Let me out!" I exclaimed after waking up and finding myself stuck in a cupboard that was on the work site we had set up as office.  
"On one condition..." A creamy unfamiliar sounding voice said on the other side of the door. "You don't make a single movement towards the two people I have out here for you..."  
"Anything to get out of this darn closet!"  
"Your wish has been granted, 'mlady!" The tall, broad figured man with a small goatee said. He had a navy turban on, and trousers that could only be described as tailored MC Hammer dancepants. He was carrying a golden lamp. For some reason, he seemed familiar...  
On the other side of the room, on two chairs, were Arthur and Eames. They were both tied up with duct tape covering their mouths and limbs firmly keeping them on their separate chairs. I wanted to scream at that man, make him set them free, but there seemed to be this higher force not allowing me to.  
"I am such a dishonourable man! My name is Hanj the genie protector of the lamp of DREAMS! I recently came across your PASIV dream machine thingamajig when I was travelling through Mumbasa..."  
"That's where I have seen you before! You were our driver for the trip!"  
"That's absolutely correct darling!" said Hanj, suddenly starting to sound like Eames. He then cleared his throat. "Anyway to get on with the mission!"  
"What mission?"  
"The mission of true love and lust," Hanj said putting his creamy voice back on. "Over the next few hours, you will be slipping between two realities... One in which, one of the two boys over there is madly in love with you, and one where the other boy is madly in love with you. When the hourglass is full..." Suddenly an hourglass in a compact necklace form appeared around Araidne's neck. "You will ruturn to this room and tell me which reality is real! Good luck!"

The hourglass turned... And the adventure commenced.


	2. Chapter 2 -- The Doctor

Ever since I first ventured into the dream world using the PASIV, I have always had a strong sense of what is reality and what is the dream world. I always carry my token with me but right now when I feel the weight of it in my hand, it feels light and heavy all at once.

I walk around for a while in my new location, trying to find something familiar looking... And then I see it. Big Ben. I'm not in Paris anymore! Stop freaking out Araidne, Hanj probably teleported you here for a reason... If only I could find a phone box!  
So, for an hour or so I decided to try and find a phone box. In the process I walked past the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham palace and Harrod's. I finally came across what looked like, from a distance, a blue phone box. I thought that it was a bit strange the box being blue, since all of the phone boxes in London are red.  
As I walked closer, the box seemed more familiar. When I was in arms reach of the box I heard two voices so I decided to hide and listen to what they were saying.  
"I can feel the Earth's rotation, Rose Tyler. I have seen the stars, alien races and species' deaths. Everytime I am present, I feel as if I am the cause of it, that's why you can't travel with me anymore. I don't want you getting hurt." A firm voice said.  
"But Doctor! I promise to be on my best behavior! Pleeeeease!"  
"Rose! I cannot have you dying on one of my joy rides around the universe! Goodbye Rose Tyler..."  
Finally the cogs in my head started to whirl. Rose Tyler was The Doctor's companion for many episodes and I have just wound up in their messy break up! This is so not fair! But maybe... Maybe I am here for a reason.  
The Doctor when he walked over to his box, saw me. When I saw him, he looked like Eames. He gave me a classic cheeky smile and asked, "What's a girl like you Araidne, doing in a country like London?"  
"Trying to find you or Arthur..." I said, trying to keep the attracted crush blush to a minimum. I couldn't believe it, my dream come true! Eames was actually the Doctor and he had a freaking blue box!  
"Who is Arthur?" It then hit me, the way Hanj did this was so Eames couldn't remember Arthur in this reality, I realized that this can't be reality (Or so I think...) so I decided to have some sexy, flirtatious fun.  
"My brother," I replied. "Anyway, love your police box." I rubbed the TARDIS with my back in a suggestive way, for a moment I wish I was in a provocative red dress, but then Eames finally caught on. He snapped his fingers and the TARDIS door opened.  
"Darling, come on in... I think you will like my box, also know as the TARDIS."  
"Oh really!" I said, acting as if I had never watched Doctor Who.  
"Darling, you already knew it was the TARDIS, you also know that my alter ego goes by the name of Eames."  
"Wait a sec, you've been the Doctor all alooooonnngggg?"

I have this feeling of falling... Falling... Falling...


	3. Chapter 3 -- The Master

When I awoke, I was lying on a bench in the middle of suburbian London. There were "Vote 1 Saxon" posters everywhere and I inferenced that it was voting month in London.  
There was a big television in the town center area I walked to. I was surprised to see a couple of meters away the 10th regeneration of the Doctor and Martha Jones looking up at the television screen. Up on the screen was the man himself, Harold Saxon. In Doctor Who, Harold Saxon was the Master. But the Master didn't have his normal face... He had the face of Arthur!

I followed all the street signs I could so I could get to London's government house. I knew I would find Arthur there. When I finally got there, I checked the progress of my hourglass' sand. It was almost a quarter of the way through.  
Suddenly, I saw Harold Saxon, I mean Arthur, exit a black Government limo. He rushed into the building, but I could not see his face because there was a huge crowd of papparazi swamping the outside of the building. Probably for some weird climate change tax story. I ran through the bushes that counted as the 'garden' that lined the building all the way to the back. When I got to the back door, Arthur was outside eating a salad sandwich. I noticed that there were bean sprouts and other green lettuce specimens hanging out of the edges of his mouth while he chewed. From my hiding place behind a wall just around the corner from where Arthur was, I giggled. I had obviously giggled loudly because Arthur looked left and right and then headed towards where I was. I hid my head out of sight and tried to make sure I didn't sneeze from all of the petunias that were in the back courtyard area. Of course, my nose being my nose, it is quite rebellious. From a young age I have, unknown to the rest of the extractors, been allergic to certain varieties of petunias. I keep a record of when and where I have my reactions in my personal diary. Nobody apart from my family and my high school boyfriend have read this diary. Then it happened, the biggest sneeze my nose has ever created exploded out of my nose and onto the wall in front of me. Only a deaf person standing a mile away would have not been able to hear my sneeze. Arthur turned his head, dropped his sandwich and started to run after me. I ran as fast as I could. I ran around the corner only to find an unfamiliar staircase there. It then hit me like a gunshot in the head but I thought I would address it later, once I was at the 'top'. I stopped for a moment, just to catch my breath and then, after hearing Arthur's thumping footsteps, began the ascent to the so called top of the staircase. The staircase was surrounded by four square walls that were a deep red. On the walls were famous paintings by Monet, Leonardo Da Vinci (but on the label it said DiCaprio instead of Da Vinci) and Salvador Dali. Arthur's noisy feet were starting to catch up when I reached the top. Great, Arthur's favorite paradox has an end! This can only mean that he expects me to stop... Oh well! Let's take the plunge as a kick to a higher level. Here goes nothing...


	4. Chapter 4 -- Fish and Chips

"Araidne? Are you all right?" I was back on the same level as Eames. He seemed slightly anxious. "Wanna go out and get fish and chips?  
"Yeah, sure." I said, ready to test my theory that I was in the dream world.  
We walked through the streets of suburbian London until we came across a shop that was just a little bit too familiar. I did not say a thing though. Once we were inside and at the counter, the cashier asked. "What can I get you?"  
My chance. "Eames, what do you want?" I shouted, kicking the counter. All the people (or should I say, projections) looked at us with death stares. Eames swore under his breath. Ha ha Eames! And you think I am not smart. I only just stifled my giggles. It wasn't long until Eames was pulling me out of the shop.  
"What the fuck were you doing in there Araidne?" He asked as if aggravated but with a slight sexy smirk.  
"Just testing your reaction..." I lied. Yeah, it was a lie... But it was the first time Eames actually (seemed) to believe my lie!  
"Ha ha, very funny Araidne... You sure know how easy it is for me to get angry!"  
I checked my hourglass. The bottom half was almost full. "Hey, wanna go for a walk around London?" I asked.  
"Yeah sure that would be nice Araidne..."  
"Oh and Eames..." I looked around quickly just to check if Arthur was around, and then I did it. I kissed Eames on the cheek. I felt the naughtiest I had ever felt in my entire life. "Thats for taking me to this shop and putting up with my randomness."  
Eames just laughed and took my hand and we walked along.  
It was almost the end of my time on this level, when Eames leant over and whispered in my ear, "Arthur has got the hots for you." I blushed madly. Arthur? He really does like me in a like like way! Aaaaaah... I feel like I am falling into a marshmallow. Then I realise that Eames said that. Since when have Eames and Arthur shared those sorts of things? Eames obviously saw my reaction to what he had said. "Arthur and I go way back..." he said with a cheesy smile. "At one point, we were even romantically interested with each other!" I cringed. The thought of gay people always made me feel awkward and yuck inside. But then I realised that Eames was flirting with ME when I first got into this dream... Which must mean that he- *gulp* likes both guys AND girls!  
Eames once again read me like a book. "I've said too much haven't I?"  
"No, it's just well..."  
"You could only see me as a straight guy? Geez, Araidne get some imagination!"  
"What happened to you being the Doctor?" Now THAT caught him off guard!  
"What do you mean darling?" I just poked my tongue out at him and he poked me in the stomach. I giggled and then we kept walking.

The sun then started to set awfully quickly and there was classical music ringing in my ears. The kick...


	5. Chapter 5 -- Working it out

When I awoke, the so-called "Hanj" was shaking me into consciousness (if that is possible when you are dreaming).  
"So, Araidne... How were your experiences?" I looked over at the duct taped Eames and Arthur, and suddenly I was convinced that the person who was duct taped to the chair was not Eames but another trained dream forger... But who could do that other than Eames? The "Eames" that was over in the chair had black undergrowth in his hair, but I have a feeling that Eames undergrowths are brown...  
"Araidne?"  
"Yes?" I replied snapping back to "reality".  
"You still have not answered my question!" Hanj snapped.  
"And..." I stretched the word, hoping that whoever this Hanj person was in real life did not get annoyed. "What question would that be?"  
After I said that I could hear duct tape muffled laughs at the back of the room coming from Arthur, they were soon stopped though by a kick from 'Eames'.  
Hanj sighed. "To get to the point, which 'world', as such, is reality?"  
"Well obviously neither of them!" Giggles resounded from both of the duct-taped men, which resulted in Hanj shouting at them "Shut up!" which just created more muffled laughing.  
"Why do you think that neither of the realities are, in fact, reality dar...Araidne?" 'Hanj' asked. Each time he said a sentence, he seemed more like Eames than the last.  
"I have suspicions," I started to say in my pompous voice. "That in our extraction team... There is more than one forger!" More muffled noises came from Arthur at the back of the room as he struggled out of his chair. I ran over to help, no barrier between him and my amazing helping skills.  
"No! Araidne! Please don't let him free or I'll... I'll... Put classical music on!" Hanj threatened. Arthur then, with his one recently freed hand, ripped the duct tape off his mouth. "Araidne! I love you!" He shouted across the room. "I love you so much that if you can recall to Hanj over there all of the things that were out of place in the dream, he will let you free."  
"I'll do what?" Hanj dramatically raised his voice. "Set her free! How could you think such a thing Arthur? After all that I have done for you!" Hanj said, starting to speak in Eames voice.  
Arthur chuckled behind my back but stopped when I looked his way. "What have YOU done for ME other than make salad sandwiches for most of my life?" Arthur said before bursting into "real" tears and sobbing in his misery muttering, "I should never have trusted a bastard like that..."  
"Damn straight Arthur, damn straight..." I commented while trying to contain my giggles.  
"THATS IT! I give up... I am going to play classical music!"  
"Go ahead..." I trailed off, gazing into Arthur's eyes.  
"Yeah, do it," Arthur pressured while blushing because of my loving stare. "You know you..."

Aaah dah aaaaaaah dum dah dee! …


	6. Chapter 6 -- Love and Great White Sharks

"You should have seen her face!" Eames said cracking up in laughter. "She looked like she had done the naughtiest thing she had ever done in her entire life!" The company who were with Eames cracked up. As I walked closer I saw who they were. There were Arthur and Eames (obviously...) with Dominic and... Yusuf?! I haven't seen him since we did the Inception last year, yet there he is, laughing with the other guys like old times. I sometimes have wondered what ever happened to him... Oh, and Saito too. According to the newspapers, Saito is the head of the company he claimed from Mr Fischer. Good for him I say, after all of the going into limbo... I wonder if he's a little bit like Mal or sort of like The Doctor from Doctor Who sort of... Wondering if his life is a dream...  
"Hey Araidne, your up!" Eames said like a kid who just got out of school.  
"Yes Eames, I am up," I said gleaming. "You were telling your extractor friends here about the little peck on the cheek you got I gather?"  
"Yes I was," his British accent bleeding through as it naturally did. "And how you reacted to the parts of the dream that Arthur and I built in. Like the fact you JUMPED off Arthur's paradox was plain genius!"  
"Of course Hanj why would I do anything other?" I said in a British accent. All of the boys laughed because they were in on the joke while Eames just stood there blushing.  
"So obviously you worked out that I was Hanj..."  
"Your accent kept bleeding through Eames... And anyway, how long has Yusuf been a trained forger?"  
There was a short silence, then Yusuf interjected before Eames could comment. "I have had to forge other people's concoctions all my life, and then just alter or modify as suits."  
"Isn't that cheating?" Dom asked while scratching his chin. It was the first time I had ever seen him clueless or completely confused. It was so funny that I had to cover my mouth to conseal my giggles.  
"Is extraction cheating Dom?" Arthur counteracted with a smirk. "Anyways... Guys, can Araidne and I just have a moment?"  
"So you can do stuff together privately? Eww get a room!" Eames squealed like a girl.  
"This is the room," I laughed as the boys and Eames left the main part of the warehouse. Before leaving Eames winked at me and mouthed the words 'go get him babe'.

The first time Arthur and I had any real contact with each other away from the team was when Arthur showed me how to create paradoxes. It was then that I started to have a slight crush on him. I don't know whether it was his looks or his intellectual side that hooked me in, but once it did, I was hooked in for ages... And it wasn't until the inception job that Arthur started to show his slight crush for me too by 'distracting' the projections through giving me a kiss. But now, after Eames revealed that Arthur had a crush on me, I know that he really truly loves me.  
His hand and mine interlocked once the door of the warehouse closed. Arthur's hands were starting to get clammy and slippery but I didn't care, I had Arthur, that's all I cared about. He was the first one out of us both to make a move. He put his hand behind my back and lunged in to give me a kiss. I didn't object, his lips on mine were pure bliss for the eight and a half seconds they were pressed together. I wished we could have done more but Arthur just told me through his eyes that it would just have to wait for another time. Arthur then went and called for the guys to come back from the other room. I was melting like ice... Only without the brain freeze.

"So," Eames said after all the other guys had left. "Was that fun or what?"  
"Annoying you mean! I thought I had really been captured originally! It was only when I got into your 'reality' that I had a feeling..."  
"Of love? Lust? Or was it longing?" Eames said in his amourous deep voice.  
"None of those genius..." I cackled to myself.  
"Well, if you are SUCH a genius," Arthur said. "Were we acting when you came into the room and hid behind Dominic's desk?"  
I was worried they were going to ask this intellectual question... The killer. The thing that makes people attractive to Great White Sharks... "Ummm..." I stuttered.  
"Final answer?"  
"You were both acting!" I shouted. "Arthur, you never have acted murderous towards Eames in the time that I have known you... But yet I still went along with it!"  
"Enjoy your cuppa yesterday morning at Starbucks, darling?"  
"Eames, what in the world did you do to my low fat mocha coffee!?"  
"What I do to all of my victims..."  
"You put timed sedative in, but there was only marshmallows? It wasn't chunky."  
"I am the forger. Is there any more to say?" Eames replied with a satisfied, triumphant smile. I thought for a while, trying to think of witty comebacks but Arthur was already one step ahead, "I think Araidne has been hassled enough for the day Eames... But I wouldn't mind hassling her lips!" He attacked like lightning. His lips were on mine and his tongue was swishing around in my mint flavored (I had just had a mentos) mouth. Eames was watching, wondering what would happen next. I had a feeling that watching other people kiss was how Eames got his daily kick, and I really wanted to look at his trousers and see whether he had the 'e' word happening... But I did not get the chance because before I knew it, Arthur was pushing me over to the deck chairs that we use for extraction and dream tests. Eames walked out humming to himself the tune of 'Toxic' by Britney Spears. "Arthur..." I mumbled, after ten long amourous minutes of him smothering me in kisses.  
"Yes Araidne?" He drifted off, gazing into my eyes.  
"I was wondering if we could do this another time... But in a hotel room or... At my house?"  
"Yeah... Sorry about that, got a little carried away..." And HIGHLY obsessed Arthur! Don't forget that.

So, anyway that is the story of how Arthur and I kissed in reality, and how Eames and Arthur tricked me in the most wicked way possible... It was intoxicating, exciting, annoying and naughty all at the same time!

_A/N: Thanks for reading!_  
_Please review if you think that it deserves it! :)_

_(or PM me with good ideas for future stories :D )_


End file.
